


The Devil In The Details

by Eustacia Vye (eustaciavye)



Category: Push (2009)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-10
Updated: 2012-12-10
Packaged: 2017-11-20 20:06:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/589157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eustaciavye/pseuds/Eustacia%20Vye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The plan was to take down a Division facility in Singapore. Why do plans never go smooth?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Devil In The Details

**Author's Note:**

  * For [victoria_p (musesfool)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesfool/gifts).



Coming up with the plan was easy. Executing it was not.

"We should have known that Xiong wasn't going to let this go," Nick grumbled at Cassie. They were locked in a basement storeroom, Xiong's goons standing guard outside. While Nick could possibly Move the door from its hinges, they had no weapons other than their skills. There was nothing in the storeroom that could be used as a weapon; even the shelves were bolted into place and nothing was on them. Perhaps Moving a shelf from the wall would give them a blunt object to hit someone with, but most of Xiong's goons were armed with semiautomatic pistols. A single shelf wouldn't protect them for long.

It had been three years since Nick and Cassie had gone up against Carver and Division. In the past three years, Carver's death had been the first of many. Nick practiced his Moving skills and was far better at it than he used to be. He was a far cry from the master his father had been, but Nick was training on his own and only when Cassie Saw that it wouldn't lead a Sniffer their way. His training as a result was spotty and incomplete, but he didn't lose at dice anymore. Nick's hair was a little longer now, and he didn't go around with a perpetual five o'clock shadow anymore. His clothes were better quality and bore up to travel, but he was still a jeans and shirt sort of guy.

The most change was in Cassie. She had gone from gawky thirteen years old to voluptuous sixteen. There were still occasional streaks of color in her blonde hair, and her piercing eyes saw far too much. Her clothes tended to be tight and artfully mismatched, making her look like an art student in college. She still couldn't draw worth a damn, despite lessons Nick had gotten for her fourteenth birthday. Her skills weren't quite as childish, but the drawings themselves still carried too much ambiguity.

The plan had been to meet Xiong and negotiate their skills in trade for men to take down a Division lab in Singapore. There had been the demolition of various labs, warehouses and offices over the past three years, but it only seemed to slow down operations. Nothing seemed to be a big enough site to really shut them down. The Singapore lab might have been a big enough target; Cassie Saw it explode as Nick put together his plan to ask Xiong for help.

Unfortunately, the entire conversation went south quickly, and the crime lord now had them in an empty basement storeroom.

Nick knew better than to make snide remarks about Cassie's ability to See things like this. She Saw the parts that mattered, and sometimes the details were fuzzy. It was usually Nick's job to make the details fall into place.

"They're making a decision," Cassie announced finally, voice calm. That had to be a good sign. She grinned as she Saw what was happening. "This is exactly what we needed to happen."

"Being locked in a basement?" Nick asked, a sarcastic edge to his voice.

Cassie rolled her eyes at him in exasperation. "Of course not. We needed Xiong to look into the story we gave him."

"He's too big to cheat."

"Yes, but that hasn't stopped people from trying. He needed to check us out, and he _likes_ Emily Hu."

"Is there anyone around here she doesn't know?"

Laughing outright, Cassie lounged against the wall and flashed him an insouciant grin. "Well, we heard about the lab through a friend of a friend of a friend of hers..."

Nick made a slicing motion with his hand at the sound of footsteps approaching. He gave the goons a grin when the door opened. "Hey guys," he called out as if he hadn't been tense at all. "What took you so long?"

***

Ha Xiong was in his early fifties, though he could easily pass for a man twenty years younger. He worked out regularly and trained with weapons so that he didn't have to rely on bodyguards. He stared at Nick and Cassie with his dark almond shaped eyes, his thin lips compressed into a tight line. "You have been exceedingly honest," he said finally, his English heavily accented but still easy to follow. "This means you are foolish or exceptionally skilled if you choose to defy Division this way."

"A little bit of both, probably," Nick replied, smiling a little. He couldn't help himself, but the continued repressive stare forced the smile to slide from his lips. "But we still mean to do this."

"With a number of my men that may never return to me."

"There's always a risk when working against Division," Nick said. He nodded toward the man slouching in the corner. "But then, that's why you have a Shadow, isn't it?" Xiong didn't seem outwardly affected by Nick identifying the Shadow in the room, but Nick was willing to bet that he wasn't used to having his moves anticipated. "We'll be taking the blame for the strike, of course. When the dust settles, you can move in and take over the area. We both get what we want."

"You are suggesting that I want Singapore."

"Why wouldn't you?" Nick asked, carelessly shrugging. "It's a large city with a lot of potential business. If Division is out of the picture, then the ones with talents will come out of hiding and will need someone to coordinate the work that they can do."

Xiong was quiet for a moment. "And what is your approach to their facility, hm?"

Nick turned to Cassie, who had gotten her bag and sketchbook back. "Let me draw it out." At Xiong's nod, he began to draw a rough sketch of the facility in question, marking the shifts of guards, entrances and likely places where the Specials were held and experimented on, as well as the latest version of R16 was being produced for those experiments. "Twenty of your men plus us, a Screamer and two Stitches that we have can take this place apart at the seams. All you have to do afterward is mop up and take over."

The crime lord's eyes swept over the sketch, weighing the plan against what he knew of the Singaporean location and the potential loss of twenty men. After a moment, he nodded sharply and gave Nick an edged smile. "It is acceptable," he declared finally. He sealed the deal by shaking Nick's hand, his grip almost painfully tight.

Nick merely shook without looking injured, finally understanding why months ago Cassie had told him that it would be vitally important for him to have a strong handshake. Watchers rarely told others exactly why things like that would be important, but sometimes it was all about the details. "It's settled, then."

***

Abigail had been behind the counter of the old fashioned apothecary shop for more years than she cared to remember. It was part of the price of her marriage so many years ago; her mother-in-law had the gift of farsight and knew that Abigail was a better choice for her son than the local girl looking for a traditional marriage. There were a number of things Abigail had to promise in order to marry Hieu, though she never regretted the bargain she had struck. She had already buried her mother-in-law, her husband, their eldest two children and one of her grandchildren but still had duties to fulfill. Her surviving children weren't interested in the shop, which had been run by her husband's family for generations. One of her granddaughters had some interest in herbalism and such, but was still in college. Ngoc had less than one year left, and would have her business degree. Abigail could then gracefully transfer the care of the shop to Ngoc and retire, though she had no idea what to do with her spare time once she had it. Her entire life had been devoted to her family and the shop, with little room left over for hobbies or frivolous interests.

She looked up as a group of three people entered the shop. The man in the lead was rather short, with dark hair and brown eyes as most Asian men had. She could tell that he was a man used to violence by the way he moved, and his eyes scanned the room quickly and efficiently, likely noting anything that could be used as a weapon. He was dressed in a black Western suit with sharply pressed creases over a crisp white shirt, no tie at the neck. Behind this man was a taller man with dirty blond hair, blue eyes and rounded shoulders that made Abigail think of a slouching giant. Beside him was a young girl with colorful streaks in her blonde hair, a pencil tucked into a mass of twisting curls. She was dressed more flamboyantly, all colors bright against the dark black tights above her ragged-looking sneakers.

"Cassie," Abigail said, instantly recognizing the girl from one of her mother-in-law's visions and sketches. "I was told you would come."

The three people were all nonplused, and watched as Abigail reached behind the counter for a small lacquered box inlaid with a white lotus flower on the top. "This box has waited here for decades. I've never opened it, but I was instructed that this must go to you."

"How did you know we were coming?" the tall blonde asked, brows crinkling in concern.

"My late mother-in-law had farsight, and she drew a picture of Cassie." Abigail pushed the box across the counter toward her. "She called you the white lotus, like this flower," she added, tapping the top of the box, "and that you were like her. You were important, but she never told me why."

"So did she say when I was supposed to open this?" Cassie asked, coming up to lay her hand over the box. Abigail shook her head, and Cassie flipped the lid open. Inside was a pressed white flower resting over a list of items written in characters. "I can't read this."

"This is Vietnamese," Abigail offered, taking the list from Cassie's fingers. "They didn't always have an alphabet, you know. That was the French intervention. They used to use Chinese characters, and my mother-in-law insisted that I learn both as a condition of my marriage." Her eyes swept over the list. "Now I know why."

"Why?" the Asian man asked. "What is that?"

"This is a mixture of stimulants and herbs that will enhance the senses, speed reflexes and increase clarity of thought. It is a very dangerous recipe, one that could even result in death."

Cassie looked over at Nick warily. "Sounds like R16."

"Oh! That sounds familiar as well," Abigail remarked. "Her drawings were of you, Cassie, but she once said that the secret was finding something safer than R16."

"Well, no one's found it yet," Cassie told Abigail.

"Unless that's it," the tall blond replied, frowning at the list in Abigail's hand.

"You're the one she said was important," the Asian man said, giving Cassie a hard look. "You drink it."

Despite the blond's protests, Cassie nodded and turned to Abigail with a determined look on her face. This was something foreseen long before she was born, possibly before even her mother had thought to fight Division. She knew how Watching worked, and it was often tied to probability and symbolism. Her mother had told her to carry white flowers whenever she could, and Elizabeth Holmes had told Nick's father years ago to wait for a girl to give him a white flower. Elizabeth might still be in Division clutches, but she was very gifted and very devious. One symbol could easily work for multiple visions.

"Mix it up."

***

Singapore was on fire.

Flames erupted from the building, black smoke wafting up into the atmosphere at an alarming rate. People were helpless to escape the flames, and the ones that weren't directly in the path of the devastation had to choose burning alive or plummeting to their deaths. It was horrifying to watch the pain, seeing people shrivel, shriek and die. Cassie felt almost responsible, and moved to do something, anything, to help put out the flames.

She couldn't move.

Cassie panicked and looked all around her, then realized why she couldn't move: she wasn't actually there. She was looking at the office building next to the Division facility she and Nick had planned to take apart. At first she didn't understand why it was burning as well, especially considering the fact that her prior visions all had the facility exploding. Moving closer to the burning building, she soon understood why this location was burning up as badly as it was.

The facility was for the production, storage and testing of Division's pharmaceuticals. This office building contained all of the agents that controlled the labs, the Specials and the tight rein on the underground movement. If the agents were eliminated, then control over Singapore would be loose again.

Visions had never come to Cassie this clearly before, even after she had hard liquor and was drunker than any human had a right to be. Whatever Abigail had mixed up for her in the shop gave increased sharpness and perception to her visions, and she Saw far more detail now than she had before.

She could also see a face in the building looking back at her, hand pressed up against the glass. _I see you,_ the figure whispered, too indistinct with the fire behind it. _Tell_ ge ge _that I know you did what you had to do, and you didn't want to see all of this destruction. I know that._ The fire was engulfing the figure now, and it punched through the glass with preternatural strength. _Thank you._

Cassie bolted awake, screaming.

***

Xiong's man Lu was disconcerted by Cassie's terror on waking, visible even though he tried not to show it. He listened to Cassie's description of her vision once they were in the confines of his hotel room, his face a mask of relative calm. The only outward indication that her words troubled him was the incessant picking at his pants leg and the rigid way he held his spine. "I know the building of which you speak. I know the area very well, which is why Xiong sent me to act in his name." Lu's voice was stiff and overly formal, which Cassie and Nick both found very alarming. Something was not right here. Some detail she hadn't seen even with the strange concoction she had swallowed.

"Something happened," Nick guessed.

Lu didn't answer right away. "My younger sister. Hers is the gift of fire." He looked directly at Cassie. "Division came, and she either had to work for them or die."

"So that's why Xiong was certain that you would help. You want Division stopped, and you would know who is in the area that would work well."

Lu nodded. "Your friends arrive tomorrow. Then we strike quickly. Perhaps my sister will be consumed in the flames, perhaps not," he began slowly. No one questioned that, even if Cassie hadn't ever been wrong before. "Perhaps she finally gets to walk free."

Cassie nodded, though she felt sick to her stomach. Lu's sister wouldn't survive the assault on the facility and she didn't want to. She had calmly stood there as the flames devoured her. "Tomorrow."

Nick rested a hand at the small of Cassie's back, silently comforting her with his presence. She leaned into him, pushing away the visions that would come about their future. There was time enough for that later. One disaster at a time. No need to borrow trouble. Whatever else her mother used to tell her when she wanted to know everything _now,_ never mind the consequences. There were always consequences, always details missed if she forgot what was truly important.

"Get some sleep, small fry," Nick murmured, rubbing her back a little. "Tomorrow's a big day."

***

Nick brightened when he saw Pinky sitting next to Julian Ghent, Denise Sataarn and Ping Wen. Julian was their Screamer, and had met Nick and Cassie soon after they had double crossed Carver. Denise and Ping were Stitches they had met over the years, and they were only too glad to use their skills to make sure that their team actually survived the hit on the Singaporean facility. They were planning to enter Singapore by ferry from Bintan, Indonesia; the tourist population there likely would cover their tracks and make them harder to find if anything went wrong. Cassie had slept on the flight to Bintan, but Lu and Nick had kept watch. The twenty men that Xiong had promised were to meet them in Singapore. They each were taking separate routes, some from Indonesia, some from Malaysia, some flying in from China.

Division masked its testing facility as a chemical plant on Jurong Island. The island contained various oil refineries, petroleum plants, polymer and polycarbonate resin facilities, petrochemicals and other specialty chemical plants. It was separated from Singapore proper but connected by roadways, pipelines and protected by private security companies. The Singaporean Army helped to protect the island, as it was deemed a protected area after the 2001 terrorist attacks. This made it harder to break into the area, but not impossible. Denise had worked on the island's clinic for almost a year now, and was close to obtaining a permanent resident visa to live in Singapore. She outlined the area on a map of the island she brought with her, which was a bit more detailed than the one she had previously given to Nick. "JTC Corp has been building the caverns for years now," she said, smoothing the map flat on the table. "Most of the companies have access tunnels down there. It's for storing oil or chemicals or whatever the hell else they want to put down there so that it frees up the real estate on the island proper," she added for Cassie's benefit, seeing her confused expression. "The caverns are going to be fully operational in 2013 if it all gets completed on time. But you know Division doesn't give a shit about official timelines. I'm willing to bet they have an access shaft down there, but I don't know that for certain."

"What do you know?" Nick asked, looking at the map with a frown. It had more details than the one he had memorized or the crude sketch he had drawn for Xiong, but it was essentially the same.

"This is their facility, and this is the associated office building," Denise told them, pointing to a plain building next to the one they had built their entire plan around. "I've followed some of their people around Singapore, and a fair number of them are in the CBD. The Business District," she clarified before Nick could even ask. "So I'm sure Division's got their fingers in a few other pies in the city, the better to hide what they're doing. It's good that you've got firepower backing you up, Nick. Their security is good, and that's not even counting the private companies that regularly patrol the area."

"Good thing we're going to be new employees," he said brightly, nodding at Julian. In addition to his talent as a Screamer, he was a fair hand at forging documents and ID's. "So we have every right to be on that island."

"All the guys are accounted for?" Denise asked, skepticism in her tone.

"Just need pictures," Julian answered with a shrug. "I got a heads up on this two weeks ago."

"Division has warning," Lu said sharply, glaring at Nick.

"Not where," Nick said, looking at him evenly. "Julian made a _lot_ of ID's."

"Yeah. Singapore, Paris, Geneva, Beijing, Bangkok and Jaipur. I did it not knowing which place we were planning to hit," Julian told them with a shrug. "I brought it all with me. Made fifty each."

"So they have armed all those places," Ping said sourly, finally joining in the conversation. "You have made this assault much more difficult."

"They don't know who we are, how many we have or where we're going to strike." Nick nodded at Pinky, who grinned at them all. "They won't know until it actually happens and it's too late."

"You're always confident that these plans of yours will work," Ping groused, leaning back in his chair. He looked over at Lu. "I think he agrees with me."

"The plans work because I've been a grifter a long time," Nick said, taking hold of his bottle of beer. "Plus, I lay out the plans with a Shadow on board and make sure that the actual plans are laid out in a way that can't be traced back to what we actually do." He took a swig and grinned. "Ask Cassie, I'm very good at not thinking."

"Definitely true," she said with a cheeky smile, snatching his beer away from him. She took a swig and handed the bottle back to him. "I've seen it work. The facility goes up in flames." Ping didn't seem truly appeased by her statement, but he at least quieted. "Division loses. It works."

"Watchers don't always see all of the details," Ping insisted. "The overall plan works, but I want to be sure I'm walking away from this. Can't put shit back together if I'm on fire."

"Spoken like a true Stitch," Lu sneered. "No spirit to fight at all."

Ping bristled at the insult, but Nick reached out a hand to halt him from doing something hasty. "Come on," he told Ping in a wheedling tone. "We all got a common enemy. Division's the one we should hate. Save it for them," he added, looking hard at Lu. He was sure that Lu was thinking about his sister going up in flames in Cassie's vision, but the plan had to be followed to the letter. That was the only way that this would work.

After a tense moment, Lu nodded. "Division will fall."

***

Lu separated from them as soon as they landed in Singapore; Nick was fairly sure he wanted to warn his sister about the attack. He started to protest, but Cassie laid a hand on his arm and gave him a quelling glance. It was enough to quiet him down, and Lu glided through the crowds and disappeared from sight. Nick looked at Cassie, jaw set in irritation. "There better be a good reason for that."

"It doesn't change."

"What?"

"The explosion. It doesn't change," Cassie repeated quietly. "She was very calm when the floor caught on fire. Thinking about it, she might have made the fire spread faster. Lu did say his sister was a firestarter."

That deflated his irritation. "So what about afterward, then? When she doesn't make it out alive and Lu blames us for her death?"

Cassie had deliberately looked for that on the ferry ride, as her visions had become much sharper and easier to direct than before. She hadn't been able to See a future for him after the explosion. "It won't be a problem," she said after a moment. "He won't bring it up." Or do anything to us went unsaid.

Nick relaxed and looked around. "Julian needs a few hours, until morning at the latest. I gave him until morning, and we ought to be able to make it to the facility on time."

"Then let's get some rest. We're gonna need it," Cassie told him solemnly. It was going to be a long fight.

***

The team entered Jurong Island as planned, with ID badges clipped to stolen uniforms. Some of the men were security personnel, others were affiliated with the clinic or one of the petrochemical companies. As long as the badges all scanned properly, they were waved through. The security personnel on the bridge and bus companies didn't know the hiring plans for the different companies, after all. It was plausible that several new staffers were coming in at the same time, as many companies hired on new staff in waves. They converged at an office building that Denise had insisted would be safe. They saw the reason for that right away: the receptionist was a Shadow and a close friend of hers.

From there, most of Xiong's men moved into position at the nearby office building or the lower levels of Division's research facility. While they did that, Nick, Cassie and the two Stitches started walking up to the front door of the research facility. Julian managed to enter the facility through a rear entrance, and his Scream into the lobby would be the signal to start everything going at once.

When the Scream hit, every window in the entire lower floor of the facility shattered. Nick Moved the front doors through the lobby area and into the reception area. The uninjured front desk staff ran out of the way, allowing Nick's team to run in and take positions. Outside the building, Xiong's men opened fire on the upper floors of the facility, which was mostly comprised of sleek composite glass. Their weapons had hollow point bullets, shattering the glass and going through walls. Some of Xiong's men were planning to shoot rockets into the facility; Nick never asked how they managed to get the weapons onto the island and honestly didn't want to know. He and Cassie headed into the research labs with the Stitches, Julian meeting up with them halfway.

Cassie directed them to the proper labs, a Sig Sauer in hand. Nick and Julian didn't necessarily need weapons due to their skills, but her Sight wouldn't necessarily keep her from getting hurt here. Too many shifting changes made Seeing her immediate future difficult at best, migraine-inducing at worst. She knew something was important in these labs, something blocked by a decent Shadow, but she couldn't be sure what it was exactly. Julian kept Screaming and Nick kept Moving things around as weapons. The Stitches hung back with Cassie, alert for anything that might be a danger or require their services.

It seemed almost too easy to get to the Shadowed lab on the second floor. Cassie didn't want to say so, but she was starting to get the feeling that they were being herded there.

She understood why as soon as Nick Moved the door clear off its hinges. Cassie clearly saw the Shadow and the four beds with strapped down and blanketed figures. The Shadow was sitting at a desk in front of a recessed elevator door which didn't seem to correspond to anything they had blasted through on the first or ground floors, which meant it had to be important and part of her Shadow skill. Some Shadows could only block a room, some could go so far as to block an entire building. What was something the size of an elevator shaft?

The Sig was pointed at the Shadow's head before she could even drop the magazine she was reading and reach for the phone. "You don't want to do that," Cassie said evenly. The two Stitches went to go check on the four figures in the beds. "Notify anyone, and I shoot you."

The Shadow was a nondescript woman of middle age and Chinese heritage. Her voice was high pitched and girlish, making the others wonder how old she actually was. "If you kill me, they'll know this room was compromised."

"In case you haven't guessed yet, lady," Cassie said coldly, "the entire building is compromised."

She seemed shaken by Cassie's pronouncement, but remained silent for a moment. Before she could say anything, Ping hissed in recognition. _"Aiya,_ you need to see this one."

Nick slid over to cover the Shadow, a very large piece of machinery Moved into position over her head. This allowed Cassie to see what had gotten Ping worked up.

It was her mother. And in the bed next to hers was Pop Girl.

Both were heavily sedated, and Cassie looked at the stable readings on the medical equipment monitoring them. Their hands moved restlessly, trying to draw, and there was some sort of contraption beside their beds that allowed them to move pastels over paper rolls. The Shadow clearly had to move the rolls when the drawings appeared to be complete, and likely another Division employee would interpret the drawings. Cassie rushed to the other two beds on the opposite side of the Shadow, but she didn't recognize them. The same pastel and paper roll contraption was set up next to them, so she could only guess that they were Watchers, too.

"Wake them up. Let's get them the hell out of here," she said, voice sharp with anger. This was why no one seemed to know where Elizabeth Holmes had gone. This was why no one seemed to care that Pop Girl lost all of her memory after the attack. Her remaining family hadn't sheltered her; Cassie and Nick had inadvertently sent her right to Division's grasp. As much as Cassie had been afraid of Pop Girl and had hated her, she had been a product of her crime family and no one deserved to be treated this way.

"You can't!" the Shadow shrieked, her voice like nails grating across a chalkboard. "They're too dangerous!"

"Where does that elevator go?" Nick asked, deliberately starting to spin the heart monitor above the Shadow's head as Ping and Julian started to reverse the effects of the drugs on the four Watchers. The Shadow looked up, face even paler than before, and Nick let the monitor drop an inch when she didn't seem inclined to answer.

Squeaking in terror, the Shadow pushed back from the desk. The monitor moved right along with her. "I don't know!" she cried, waving her hands about. "They don't tell me! I know it's important to hide, and I think it's an access point of some kind, but they don't tell me these things! I only protect the sleepers from being taken away! They're far too dangerous to wake! You can't do this, they'll ruin everything!"

Cassie was tempted to shoot the Shadow in the leg just to make her shut up, but didn't think that would work in her favor. "You're helping Division keep Watchers dreaming for them. You're using them and testing on them and making us fight each other to the death. You're taking people and locking them away as if they're animals. _How long did you keep my mother locked up in here?!"_ she shouted, Sig Sauer pointed at the Shadow's head again. The trembling woman merely stared at Cassie with large, frightened eyes.

The four waking Watchers made various groaning noises as the sedatives left their systems. "There was something else in the drips," Ping told the others, voice quiet. "I think it was something to try to enhance the dreams."

_"It's unstable," one Division researcher told a tall man in a suit. Cassie thought that perhaps this was Carver's replacement. They had never heard from Kira again, so they couldn't tell if she had taken over Carver's place or if Division swallowed her whole to see why R16 worked without killing her. They didn't have any other viable samples, after all. Cassie and Nick had seen to that._

_The Division agent merely took the sample fluid and injected it into Elizabeth's line. He knew his way around needles and proper sterile technique, at least. "Start collecting data," the agent told the researcher in crisp South African vowels. "And make sure to protect our assets. It wouldn't do to lose her after the years of investment and safeguarding we've given her."_

Julian grasped Cassie's arm, jolting her out of the vision. "Come on. They're awake now, and she doesn't know a damn thing. We need to get out of here."

"Take the elevator," Elizabeth rasped from behind them.

"Fire," Pop Girl agreed, nodding even though her eyes looked glassy and vacant. It was eerie, given how often she used to throw sinister sneers and subtle threats. "It will come, and we shouldn't be here for that."

That was enough to get them all moving, and Nick threw the monitor aside to simply grab the Shadow. "Keep on doing what you're doing so that no one can See into the elevator shaft, okay?" he told her, holding her tight against him. "We're not interested in hurting you, only getting out of this mess in one piece."

"You won't make it," she squeaked. "You can't just walk out of here with their research project."

Denise snickered even as Cassie seethed at the Shadow's tone. "Who said anything about walking?"

"Leave her behind," Cassie said in harsh tones, staring at the Shadow. "We don't need her with us."

Elizabeth put her hand on Cassie's shoulder. "Yes, we do."

One of the two other Watchers was punching in a code for the elevator, making the Shadow squeak in surprise. "You can't know that! We're not supposed to go down there!"

"Do we need her conscious?" Nick asked Elizabeth.

She considered that for a moment. "No, we don't."

It was easy to hit the Shadow hard enough to knock her out. They got down below without incident, and they were indeed inside the caverns below the island. "They don't know where we are yet," Pop Girl said, fingers touching the wall lightly. "The fires are starting, and they are trying to contain it. The other men, the hired hands, they are fighting back and killing many of Division's guards. We need to move now, while they're distracted. Otherwise they'll know where we've gone." Her eyes were vacant, and there was absolutely no recognition when she stared at Cassie. Five Watchers, one Mover, one Screamer and two Stitches; there had to be a bad joke in there somewhere, but Cassie couldn't think of it.

She was missing something, she had to be. Five Watchers, and there was something they were missing. There was some detail she couldn't remember.

Julian went up ahead, and Cassie turned toward Elizabeth and Pop Girl. "There's something—"

One of the other two Watchers pushed her against the wall, his arm over her throat but not pressing in hard enough to cut off her air supply. His eyes were crazed, his mouth moving as if he was having a conversation with someone they couldn't see. The other Watcher that Cassie didn't know was standing in place and looking off into the distance. Elizabeth and Pop Girl didn't seem to be overly concerned with the two of them, and Cassie looked beyond the four other Watchers to where Julian and Nick were walking. Ping and the unconscious Shadow were behind them; Cassie couldn't see Denise anywhere. She felt her Sight kicking in; the Shadow would wake up in two minutes. At that time she would fight, distracting Ping, and then she would run to trigger an alarm that would bring Division goons down into the caverns.

"She's going to wake up!" Cassie called out, her voice echoing through the halls.

Ping dropped the Shadow onto the floor and pressed his foot over her throat. Her eyes snapped open and she clawed at Ping's boot, snarling obscenities. Cassie dimly realized that the Watcher pinning her to the wall was mimicking the Shadow's words. "You're lucky I'm not going to kill you," Ping snarled. "But that doesn't mean you have to enjoy being conscious."

Cassie watched as he touched her shoulders and then her legs; the sound of breaking bone was loud in the empty caverns, as were her screams. She was able to push aside the Watcher holding her. "If you ran in," said the other Watcher she didn't know, "you would have been bait and Nick would stand down."

"What do you mean?"

"Don't you notice how much he tries to protect you?" he asked, curiosity in his tone. "Haven't you even Seen your future together?"

"I try not to," Cassie replied, starting to move in the direction that Nick and Julian had taken. As the Watcher intercepted her, she could hear Julian Scream. "Let me go."

"In a moment. The fires, Cassie. Haven't you Seen the fires?"

"Lu's sister dies in the fires."

"Yes, she does. She helps to destroy the office building. But have you Seen what _Lu_ does?"

"No."

Elizabeth moved forward, toward Ping and the sobbing Shadow. Denise was nowhere to be seen.

_Lu and Denise after hours conferred over bottles of Tiger beer. "Save my sister," he said, "and I will see to it that no one ever knows who you really work for."_

_Denise smiled and took the thick clip of money that he slid across the table. "Pleasure doing business with you. I'll find my way to her, not to worry._

Division had exits into and out of the caverns. Their party was split into two teams now, and Denise was supposed to have made arrangements to get them off of the island by boat. She hadn't told any of them the details, ostensibly to protect the plan. If she was instead doubling back toward the adjacent office building, there was no way out of the caverns and off of the island. Division would find them and capture them all.

"Why didn't I See this sooner?" Cassie demanded.

Pop Girl placed her hand on Cassie's shoulder. "You're good. We're all better." There was no condescension in her tone. "Give it time and practice, and perhaps you would have Seen these things, too."

Another Scream came from down the hall. "I need to go to him."

"You need to let him go," Elizabeth said, looking impassively down at the Shadow. "She has to stay here," she told Ping. "Too far forward, and then she won't be covering the elevator shaft anymore."

"Then we go forward now," Ping insisted. "That traitor Denise can burn for all I care."

Cassie stared at her mother and the blank mask that her features had become. This wasn't the woman she remembered, and she hadn't realized until just that moment that she hung onto the image of someone that didn't actually exist. She had idealized her mother, which had been easy to do; the last time she had seen Elizabeth outside of a hospital bed had been at age seven. Cassie didn't particularly like her willingness to let someone die that had risked much to save her.

Pop Girl pointed toward one corridor in the opposite direction of Nick. "That way will lead us all to safety. She left her boat behind, and we can use it."

"Go without me," Cassie told her. Elizabeth didn't look surprised at all, merely nodding and going down that hallway with Pop Girl.

Suddenly she wondered if Elizabeth was so calm because she had Seen all this, and Division's drugs had worked better than the tea left behind for Cassie.

She moved cautiously toward the hallway that Nick had gone down, leaving Ping and the other Watchers heading for the boat that Denise had left. There were marks along the walls, possibly from Julian's Screams. She held her pistol in hand, not sure what she would find. Elizabeth warned that she would need to let him go; thinking about it now, it didn't necessarily mean that Nick had to die. It could mean that she couldn't hold him up, she couldn't catch him if he was dangling over the edge of a catwalk or that would be the one to fall. Regardless, Cassie had to go after him.

As she crept along the hallway, Cassie thought she could hear voices. One was calm, and it was saying something to Nick. He sounded confident as he replied, the low rumble of his voice familiar. Closing in on their voices, Cassie thought she could recognize the person speaking.

Xiong.

"...cost me many lives. You did destabilize the area as promised," Xiong continued in his same placid tones. She came around a turn and could see him with two of his guards. They were on a catwalk in a large circular arch that had been carved above a large storage cavern. Both were armed, pointing their own weapons at Nick and Julian. Cassie didn't think that she would be able to take any of them out.

"I outlined the plan," Nick replied, not looking scared in the least. He could probably Move the air around him into a shield to protect himself and Julian. The ability worked against small projectiles, but Cassie wouldn't have wanted to test his skill against bullets _now._ Nick could bluff his way out of just about anything if he really put his mind to it, so she would have to let him work.

Xiong was not impressed. "Yes, you did. It was acceptable at the time." His men held firm, and Julian opened his mouth to Scream. Nick shook his head to belay that, and moved into his usual fighting stance.

"So what changed?" Nick asked.

The thin smile on Xiong's lips was far from comforting. "They made a better offer if I give you to them alive." He was confident that neither would harm him, not with two armed men at his command. Neither were armed with visible weapons, and Xiong had more confidence in his armed guards than in psychic ability.

"Then I guess you'd better not get me alive," Nick replied, Moving the pistols from the guards' hands. He darted to the side and threw himself over the edge of the catwalk's railing. Cassie had to cover her mouth with both hands to keep from screaming, and she had to remember her mother's words. _You have to let him go._ Instead of rushing forward, screaming and firing her Sig, she forced herself to stay still.

Furious, Xiong shouted in Mandarin. He moved to the railing and bent over to look for Nick, incredulous at the thought of losing his payday.

Julian dodged the punch that one of Xiong's men threw at him, and was completely thrown off balance. Nick Moved himself around the entire catwalk and crashed feet first into the man in front of Julian. He Moved the other one into the wall. Unconscious, the guard fell down into the cavern below. At the same time, Julian swung around on the catwalk and threw himself at Xiong. Xiong shoved Julian to the ground and took out a Walther, pointing it at him. Eyes narrowed, Xiong looked at Julian in distaste. "Useless and unnecessary, the lot of you. I see I must take matters into my own hands."

Cassie didn't even think. She shot Xiong in the chest before he could shoot Julian, the sound echoing through the cavern. She flinched at the sound, pressing herself against the wall. She still saw Xiong thrown back over the edge of the railing, plummeting down into the cavern below.

Nick was at her side by the time the sound died down. "Thank god we got you that Sig," he told her, grinning and pulling her against him. Cassie leaned into him, breathing in the scent that she always associated with him. "C'mon, did you really think he'd kill us?"

She hit his chest in fond exasperation. "Idiot. Don't scare me like that!"

Nick looked down the hallway behind her. "Where are the Watchers?"

"They went another way," Cassie told him. "They're heading toward the boat that Denise had prepared." She paused before continuing; it wasn't exactly a vision that was coming through but something like a premonition. "We can't go that way," she told Nick and Julian with absolute certainty. "You'll have to follow me."

Cassie didn't really know where she was going, but somewhere behind them was an agonized scream of protest and then the sound of echoing gunfire. They moved through the twisting corridors of the half-finished cavern, and Cassie followed the premonitions. "Hey, I think we're in the next company's storage area," Julian said after a while. The tiles on the wall were of slightly different composition, just enough to be noticeable. "We can probably head up topside, if we can find the elevators up."

Nick gave Cassie a comforting and encouraging squeeze to her shoulder. "You got us this far. I trust you."

Though she really shouldn't have been very surprised, Cassie was still surprised to see Lu striding toward them from an elevator. "My sister sent me on ahead. A Watcher friend of hers had known I was coming, so she was ready for me. She was already setting the upper levels aflame," he said. Cassie didn't think that Lu's sister had any intention of leaving the building alive, but she must have said something convincing to get him down into the caverns. "She gave me the access codes to the staff levels, so I can get us all out."

"The Watchers from the facility went a different way," Nick told Lu as he broke into a jog. "I think Denise sold us out, since she left us a ways back."

"No. She went to save my sister." Lu punched in the access code once everyone was in the elevator. The doors slid shut and Cassie had a sudden Vision flash in front of her eyes with startling acuity. The building above them was on fire, and the Division facility next door was about to explode in the same manner she had Seen multiple times already. Lu's sister had stayed behind to make sure that their bombs did even more damage than they would have done on their own, knowing full well what she was doing. Denise was actually caught by one of the blasts, thrown into a wall with enough kinetic force to sever her spine.

Nick caught Cassie in his arms when she swayed and nearly fell, concern etched onto his features. "Hey. We're almost out of here, Cassie. You got to stick with me a little longer."

"As long as I need to," she promised, pasting a smile on her face. "I'm Seeing too many things at once," she explained, holding onto his shirt. "It's making me a little dizzy."

"You got a way out once we hit the staff exit?" Julian asked Lu.

"My sister's car," Lu said, patting his pocket. "She and Denise will meet us there."

Cassie and Nick exchanged a worried glance. Even Julian didn't seem convinced, but he kept his mouth shut.

Though they were all tense, no one bothered them in the staff garage. There was too much chaos in the building already, and no one paid any attention to them. They slipped into the car unnoticed, the front passenger seat remaining open for Lu's sister. Cassie was almost sitting on Nick's lap, but the cramped quarters were familiar by now. "How long do we wait?" Julian asked Lu from the back seat, voice quiet and without inflection.

"As long as we need to," Lu replied, white knuckled hands on the wheel. He didn't turn around to look at them; he had to have known that what Cassie Saw would come true. He simply didn't want to accept it.

"Her floor is burning," Cassie whispered after a moment. She didn't See it exactly, but she knew it with the same kind of certainty that she Saw things.

"My sister will come," Lu insisted, not looking back at them. Instead, he was focused on a point in the distance in front of them, as if she would miraculously appear there if he wished for it hard enough.

"She wanted you to go," Cassie continued in that same soft tone. "She wanted you safe. Someone had to stay behind to make sure Division burned to the ground."

Lu whirled around to face her, lips pulled back into a snarl. "She is my sister. _Mei mei_ is _my responsibility."_

"There's nothing left of her floor but flames," Cassie told him softly. "She knew it was going to happen. That's why she said the things she did, so that I could See it and tell you."

Cassie took no pleasure in seeing Lu crumple in front of her, shoulders shaking as he turned around. She thought of saying something else to try to comfort him, but he moved his hand to the ignition key and turned it.

No one said a word as they drove from Jurong Island.

***

Lau Pa Sat was a relatively cheap hawker-style festival market in the Riverside district that was open 24 hours a day. It was pricier than the budget options in the neighborhood, but the satay was famous and the constantly shifting crowds made it easy to move in and out. Fatman Satay had the best reviews, and it was an easy landmark to find once everyone was sure that they weren't being followed.

Elizabeth and Pop Girl had arrived first; Ping and the other two Watchers wandered off to get Indian food. Pop Girl turned to look in the direction that Lu, Nick, Julian and Cassie would be coming from. "They're coming," she murmured after a moment. They finished their satay in silence, then nodded as the other two Watchers returned with their food. 

Lu led the way, looking almost ill. "It is over," he said by way of greeting. He was startled when Pop Girl handed him a satay stick. "What is this?"

"Satay. One of the best," she informed him. "Focus on one thing at a time, one moment and no other." At his confused look, she smiled and pointed at the satay. "All things pass in time, even this." She didn't seem to mind the odd look he gave her, and she handed satay sticks to the others.

"It's over now," Julian told them. "I think I'll just text you the transfer codes. Wire me the money for my share, huh? I'd like to make it out of this city in one piece."

"Their sniffers are dead," Elizabeth informed him.

"Burned to crisp," one of the other Watchers added.

"Oh." Julian pondered that a moment. "I hear the cuisine here is lovely. In that case, I may stay a while and sample it for myself."

"We've got a place in Hong Kong," Cassie told Elizabeth. It was impossible not to hear the hope in her voice, the desperate wish that they could be a family again. As much as Elizabeth had become someone that Cassie didn't recognize, she still wanted her mother. She wanted to get to know this woman in front of her. "You're welcome to stay with us," she said, sure Nick would agree even if she hadn't asked first.

Elizabeth gave Cassie a faint smile and nodded. "For a time, at least. The two of you have a long future ahead, and you won't want me there interfering with it."

"I'm sure you won't interfere," Nick replied.

The faint smile remained on her face. "I suppose we'll have to see what happens." She didn't say anything when Nick laughed and Pop Girl giggled. "I didn't look that far ahead yet."

Cassie hesitated for a fraction of a second, then slipped her arm through her mother's the way she used to do as a child. "Now we can," she said when her mother didn't shake her off. "Now we're together again." The words felt absolutely certain, as if they carried the weight of a Vision.

"To survival," one of the Watchers said, lifting his carton of coconut milk in salute.

The others lifted their satay sticks solemnly. "To survival."

It wasn't a smooth road, but the details had worked themselves out and they had made it to the end. Sometimes, that was more than enough.

The End


End file.
